Doubt
by mr. eff
Summary: Johnny has doubts about his actions. Story is better than summary.


Disclaimer: I own nothing. Jhonen Vasquez is the mastermind behind JTHM.

Warning: Contains violence, language, and everything else that makes Johnny a homicidal maniac.

* * *

"Nailbunny?"

_Yes, Nny?_

"I feel…ill."

_Physically?_

"Yes. But also mentally, emotionally, and if I had some kind of religious faith, it would be spiritually as well."

_Why do you feel this way?_

"I found myself in one of the rooms somewhere below. I held a saw and I was hacking away at the limbs of a girl. I don't know who she is or where I got her from but when I stared into her dead, empty eyes…I realized that I don't know what she had done to be here."

Nailbunny remained silent.

"Had she done something awful to someone? Had she said something to me? I…I can't remember. All I know is that she's here and I've killed her. I took her life and I don't know if she deserved it.

What if she had been a mother? And I don't mean like Squee's sorry excuse for a mother. I mean a good mother that loved her kids. What if she had been a wife? Someone who gave to the homeless and donated to charity? What if she had been a good person and I took that all away from her?"

_Those are good possibilities and they well may be true._

"What should I do?" Johnny turned to Nailbunny, not bothering to hide the tear that escaped his eye.

_There's nothing you can do now. She's gone and you can't bring her back. But you can try to get better, Johnny! You were feeling so positive the other day, remember?_

Johnny's eyes misted over in deep thought.

"Yes. I was happy, for once. It seemed like everything was brighter. The sun was shining and people weren't as filthy as I believed them all to be. I even saw a stranger help an old man get up from the ground. Everyone was walking around him but that guys helped that old man off the ground. They looked at each other and smiled. They were happy!

The cashier at the 24/7 even greeted me! He didn't know me, since he was the day shift, but he greeted nonetheless."

_Do you see, Johnny? Not everyone is a bad person. All you see is evil around you. You always miss the good that does exist in this world._

"Yes. I won't dispute that. But I do rid the world of the evils. _I_ see them and no one else seems to."

_Everyone is blinded by their own lives and problems. This is a jaded world but you can't hide from your own sins. Killing is wrong; it's evil, but somewhere in your mind it was justified. You killed the evil you saw and then-_

"-everything went wrong. I lost my way…"

Johnny looked down, shedding more tears now. He hugged his legs to his chest and rest his chin on his knees, brooding over his actions.

_This is the first moment of clarity that you've had in a while. Think and feel. You can change. I know you can. I am the part of your mind that you had before the doughboys and the thing behind the wall came into your life. I am the part of you that existed before you came to this house. You can go back! Just try!_

"Maybe you're right. I'll try. I can. I just need to escape."

As he spoke, Johnny was unaware that the room was getting darker and that the walls were undulating a little, as if displeased by his new-found resolve to not serve his master. The floorboard started creaking and two shadows appeared from behind Johnny.

_Watch out!_ screamed Nailbunny.

But it was too late. A piece of wood whacked Johnny in the back of the head and he collapsed. Mr. Fuck and Psycho-Doughboy stood over his form with sick, deranged smiles on their faces.  
Before he passed out, Johnny turned his head and looked at them, sickened by their presence, and then he fainted.

When he came to, Johnny found himself chasing a screaming man down an alleyway wielding his smiley knife. The man had been a convicted child molester that had been set free due to a glitch in the poor legal system that was imposed. With great aim, he flung the knife and it dug straight into the back of the pervert, taking him down.

Johnny slowed his run to a walk, appearing to be in no hurry as the man groaned and looked back, trying to crawl away from the Homicidal Maniac.

Nny walked around the man's pathetic form and stopped right in front of him, preventing the man from crawling away. His boot crunched on the broken glass that lay underneath the sick freak. Nny lifted his right foot and smashed it down on the man's head, eliciting screams of pain and horror as the glass cut his face.

"You enjoy touching children, huh? Does it give you a thrill? It must feel good to overpower someone and have control of them. You sick FUCK! They're just children!

Look at you! Fucking pathetic. You can't get women so you go after the weaker ones."

Johnny kicked him in the side of the head, earning another scream from the man.

"Please…please…stop. I didn't do it," the man sobbed pathetically. "I'll never do it again."

"What? What was that?" Johnny leaned down, pretending to be unable to hear. He tilted his head to the side to further take in the man's whimpers. He crouched down and stared at the bleeding form, knife still sticking out his back.

"Nothing? Of course. Can't molest your way out of this one now."

Johnny grabbed the handle of the knife and twisted it.

The man let out a blood-curdling scream that would surely attract people to the scene, if people had cared that a man was being murdered, of course.

He yanked the blade out and stabbed the man again, twisting the knife in the same manner. Blood seeped out the wounds and formed a puddle on the ground.

Johnny stood up and looked down at his work, knife dripping blood into the puddle, which tinted the steel on his boots red.

"You make me fucking sick."

He leaned down and grabbed the man's hair, lifting his head to reveal his neck. With the blade, he severed the head at the neck, squirting blood everywhere. The man's jugular bled profusely, staining the alleyway with justice. Johnny kicked the man's body to turn him over. He unzipped the man's pants and pulled them down.

With the most disgust he's felt in a while, he used the man's shirt to remove his penis from his stained tighty whiteys and placed the member inside the severed head's mouth.

With his work complete, Johnny turned on his heel and calmly walked out of the alley, leaving the body behind. His conversation with Nailbunny earlier was completely forgotten as he let all the disgust and hatred for the world fill him with the sense of resolve he felt whenever he rid the world of the scum that inhabited it.

All doubt was gone and Johnny was back.


End file.
